The following description of the background of the disclosure is provided simply as an aid in understanding the disclosed technology and is not admitted to describe or constitute prior art to the appended claims herein.
Entertainment and Athletic events are an important part of society. From children to teenagers to adults, a large part of modern populations participate in one or more entertaining and/or athletic events. And for those who do not actually participate in the events, the vast majority of them, nevertheless, enjoy watching and/or listening to those who do. Entertainment events can involve various aesthetic activities, including listening to music, viewing art or theatrical performances, fashion, and beauty, as well as engaging in entertaining activities, such as gambling. Performance events, such as dance or gymnastics or ballet, and the like may be considered as both an aesthetic and an athletic event. Sports are athletic events and include ball games, such as: baseball, football, soccer, tennis, lacrosse, and the like; sports also include man vs. man competitions, such as those events included in the Olympics, such as track and field, boxing, judo, golf, cycling, and the like; and additionally, such events can include races, such as bike, horse, car, or boat races, and the like. Additional sporting events include water based competitions such as swimming, diving, surfing, and the like. A couple of common threads that connects all of these diverse activities is both an aesthetic of expertise, the spirit of fair competition, and the fact that each performer and/or competitor, team or individual, is judged and/or the competition itself is governed by a referee.
A problem with such judging and/or refereeing is that reasonable minds may disagree as to whether the rules were followed by the competitors, whether the performance was at a certain level, whether a ruling was accurate or not, and the like. These differences can be as mild as a difference in opinion, or may indicate a discrepancy that itself may be as mild as an implicit to as worrisome as an explicit bias. In fact, these discrepancies become even more exacerbated when the specter of bias rears its ugly head.
For instance, in certain scored events where a judge is tasked with scoring a competitor with respect to their ability to perform certain activities at a given skill level, such as a musical/theatrical performance or an Olympic competition, a situation sometimes occurs where the scores of one judge seems to be out of line with the scores of one or more of the other judges. In such instances, the viewing crowd may feel that the competition has become unfair and/or may lose interest in continued viewing of the event, which can have dire consequences for the promoters, sponsors, and/or advertisers of the event as well as for the sport itself.
More particularly, crowd engagement is not only a good metric of the entertainment's or sport's popularity, it is also a necessary component for attracting the most skilled and competent participants, as the more fan engagement there is, the more advertisers will be willing to pay to sponsor such events, and the more competitors may gain by their participation in the competition. Likewise, the more competitive the performance or competition is, the more exciting it will be to watch, and, thus, the more fans will want to view the event, which in turn will lead to greater amount of advertiser dollars being spent to sponsor such events in the future. However, where there is little to no audience interaction, there is likely going to be declining audience engagement. And further, where there is a lack of real-time transparency in the judging process, coupled with a lack of uniformity between judge scoring, the competitors are left to the mercy of the judges, and audience engagement suffers, along with sponsorship, due to perceived bias.
Such bias comes in many forms. For example, such bias may occur when one judge has a previous relationship with a participant; where a judge wishes to curry favor with a participant; where a sponsor has an undue influence on one or more judges. Or such bias may occur from those seeking financial, political, and/or for social gain, and in view of this a judge allows his or her scoring to be directed not exclusively by the particular participants' performance, but by other, external factors. Such bias, e.g., due to secrecy and a lack of transparency in judging, leaves the performers and/or competitors at the mercy of the biasness of the judges.
Accordingly, what is needed are the means and methods for increasing viewing engagement amongst a crowd of spectators, promoting fairness and enhancing sponsorship as well as more targeted advertising, while at the same time increasing transparency in competition, and decreasing bias amongst the judging faculty. In essence, entertainments, competitions, and the judging of such, needs to be modernized in a manner that more greatly involves the viewer, the participants, sponsors, and/or advertisers and their interactions, as much more intimate and intrinsic partners in the event. The present devices, systems, as well as their methods of use have been configured to overcome these and other such problems in the art. Accordingly, the goal of the technologies described herein is to solve these and other such problems faced by event organizers, sponsors, advertisers, and/or the audience of such events, for instance, to promote audience and participant engagement and minimize bias in the judging of such events.